Beta Pavonis - HD197051 - HIP102395

Beta Pavonis is a blue subgiant star that can be located in the constellation of Pavo. The star can be seen with the naked eye, that is, you don't need a telescope/binoculars to see it.

Beta Pavonis is the Bayer Classification for the star. HIP102395 is the reference name for the star in the Hipparcos Star Catalogue. The Id of the star in the Henry Draper catalogue is HD197051.

Location of Beta Pavonis

The location of the star in the galaxy is determined by the Right Ascension (R.A.) and Declination (Dec.), these are equivalent to the Longitude and Latitude on the Earth. The Right Ascension is how far expressed in time (hh:mm:ss) the star is along the celestial equator. If the R.A. is positive then its eastwards. The Declination is how far north or south the star is compared to the celestial equator and is expressed in degrees. For Beta Pavonis, the location is 20h 44m 57.56 and -66d12`11.7 .

Proper Motion of Beta Pavonis

All stars like planets orbit round a central spot, in the case of planets, its the central star such as the Sun. In the case of a star, its the galactic centre. The constellations that we see today will be different than they were 50,000 years ago or 50,000 years from now. Proper Motion details the movements of these stars and are measured in milliarcseconds. The star is moving 9.94 ± 0.09 miliarcseconds/year towards the north and -42.67 ± 0.16 miliarcseconds/year east if we saw them in the horizon.

Physical Properties (Colour, Temperature, Radius) of Beta Pavonis

Beta Pavonis has a spectral type of A5IV. This means the star is a blue subgiant star. The star is 7371.00000000 Parsecs from the Galactic Centre or terms of Light Years is 24041.5000862400000000s. The star has a B-V Colour Index of 0.16 which means the star's temperature has been calculated using information from Morgans @ Uni.edu at being 8,017 Kelvin.

Beta Pavonis Radius has been calculated as being 4.24 times bigger than the Sun.The Sun's radius is 695,800km, therefore the star's radius is an estimated 2,946,871.62.km. However with the 2007 release of updated Hipparcos files, the radius is now calculated at being round 4.16. The figure is derived at by using the formula from SDSS and has been known to produce widely incorrect figures. The star's Iron Abundance is -0.36 with an error value of 9.99 Fe/H with the Sun has a value of 1 to put it into context.

Beta Pavonis Apparent and Absolute Magnitudes

Beta Pavonis has an apparent magnitude of 3.42 which is how bright we see the star from Earth. Apparent Magnitude is also known as Visual Magnitude. If you used the 1997 Parallax value, you would get an absolute magnitude of 0.29 If you used the 2007 Parallax value, you would get an absolute magnitude of 0.33. Magnitude, whether it be apparent/visual or absolute magnitude is measured by a number, the smaller the number, the brighter the Star is. Our own Sun is the brightest star and therefore has the lowest of all magnitudes, -26.74. A faint star will have a high number.

Distance to Beta Pavonis

Using the original Hipparcos data that was released in 1997, the parallax to the star was given as 23.71 which gave the calculated distance to Beta Pavonis as 137.56 light years away from Earth or 42.18 parsecs. It would take a spaceship travelling at the speed of light, 137.56 years to get there. We don't have the technology or spaceship that can carry people over that distance yet.

In 2007, Hipparcos data was revised with a new parallax of 24.14 which put Beta Pavonis at a distance of 135.11 light years or 41.43 parsecs. It should not be taken as though the star is moving closer or further away from us. It is purely that the distance was recalculated.

The star's Galacto-Centric Distance is 7,371.00 Parsecs or 24,041.50 Light Years. The Galacto-Centric Distance is the distance from the star to the Centre of the Galaxy which is Sagittarius A*.

Source of Information

The source of the information if it has a Hip I.D. is from Simbad, the Hipparcos data library based at the University at Strasbourg, France. Hipparcos was a E.S.A. satellite operation launched in 1989 for four years. The items in red are values that I've calculated so they could well be wrong. Information regarding Metallicity and/or Mass is from the E.U. Exoplanets. The information was obtained as of 12th Feb 2017.